Shards of a Broken Colonel
by Lauriel01
Summary: John is captured and tortured, then has to pick up the pieces. Dark, some aspects may squick. Spoilers for CG and Phantoms. John's POV.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: A big thank you goes out to Linzi for the beta, and to SheppyD for inspiring the fic in the first place. Contains spoilers for Common Ground, and minor spoilers for Phantoms. Also contains torture scenes, so if you want fluffy!fic, please don't continue. If you like loads of angst, read on... Concrit welcome. :D  
_

_**Disclaimer:**__ The copyright for Stargate Atlantis belongs to MGM studios and SciFi channel. It's their playground- I'm just playing in it._

**Chapter 1**

John let his gaze wander around the now familiar conference room. It was their fourth visit to Tranth, and since things were going so well, it would probably be their last for the foreseeable future. John's team were primarily one of first contact, and now that they had almost completed the trade negotiations and were settling in to what looked like an easy alliance, there would be little need for John and the others to return. Lt. Rodriguez and his team would take over, escorting civilian teams with medical, engineering and agricultural supplies and carrying back the foodstuffs they were trading for.

John silently reviewed the premise of the treaty. On the surface, it was a poor bargain for Atlantis, since supplies from Earth were more readily available than they had been in previous years. The Tranthians didn't have much else to offer – besides friendship. And with enemies piling up with alarming alacricity, the Lantean's needed allies.

From what John had seen, the Tranthians were a thriving civilisation on the verge of an industrial boom. Furthermore, they were open and friendly traders who had a wide trade network established with other planets. The information that they could gather from their trading partners and their ability to move throughout other worlds without raising attention from Atlantis' enemies made them invaluable, in John's opinion. A viable intelligence structure in the Pegasus Galaxy was something they were sorely lacking, and desperately needed.

"Colonel Sheppard. Could I interest you in a tour of our weapons factory?" The quiet question interrupted John's musings, and he looked at Commander Greaves, hoping the relief he felt wasn't too evident.

"Sounds great. If you guys don't need us here?" He turned and looked inquiringly to Elizabeth and Chancellor Frathon, who were in the midst of wrapping up the last tedious details of the treaty. At their acquiesce, he turned to his team.

"You guys stay here. I shouldn't be gone for more than a couple of hours." He ignored a dirty look from Ronon, and inclined his head slightly in return to Teyla's nod. He followed Commander Greaves, pausing at the doorway where Lt. Fellows and Sgt. Adams were standing guard with two of Greaves' men. He put his hand on Lt. Fellows shoulder.

"It shouldn't be necessary, but if anything goes wrong, follow Teyla's lead and contact me immediately." He nodded at the affirmative response, and then followed the Commander down the hallway and out into the city.

"I hope you don't mind leaving the negotiations, Colonel. I thought I recognised the same boredom I was feeling in your expression," Greaves said with a friendly smile.

"I was hoping no-one noticed." John returned the smile. "Weapons factories are a lot more appealing. Thank you for the invitation, Commander."

"You're more than welcome, Colonel. In truth, they are more appealing to me, as well. And I think you will be interested to see our progress. The engineering advances your people will provide us with will undoubtedly aid that progress as well."

John nodded, without replying. Assisting other cultures with weapons advancement was a delicate subject, and one he was of two minds about. On the one hand, if you were going to have allies, it was best to have well armed allies. On the other hand, he'd had plenty of opportunities in the Pegasus Galaxy to see how quickly allies could become enemies. Still, Elizabeth had agreed to supply engineering advice to the Tranthians infant electricity plant, and she was not naïve enough to believe any advances wouldn't affect the culture's military as well.

John strolled through the city streets, enjoying the relaxed pace Commander Greaves set, and indulged his interest in his surroundings. The city was built entirely of monolithic stone structures, huge buildings that rambled in a haphazard order. If there was any guiding plan to the city's development, it was beyond John's ability to recognise it. He did admire the strategic value of the meandering streets, however. An attacking army would have their forces ground to pieces in the narrow, twisting streets. The buildings, built of thick, stone walls and reinforced buttressing, would take some serious ammunition to bring down, and would further constrict the hostiles when they did. They wouldn't hold up to advanced weaponry like drones, of course, so they'd have the same problems as any other civilization against the Wraith or the Asurans. The Tranthians seemed to be flourishing however, so it appeared they had avoided detection from those forces so far.

They walked through the massive gates of the walled city's southern entrance and followed the rutted roadway through the forested outskirts with Commander Greaves' armed escort following closely, but at a respectful pace. It was a good fifteen minutes before they reached the cleared area where the weapons factory was located. Looking at the sprawling complex, John quickly realised that 'weapons factory' was a misleading term. The complex consisted of ten or so large buildings, built using the same massive, grey stone bricks of which the city was constructed. It was walled in, as was the city, and reminded John more of a medieval castle than a military complex.

"Is it wise having the facility this far from the city's defences?" he asked the Commander.

"It is one of the drawbacks, yes," Greaves responded uncomfortably. "It is well defended, however, and considering the experimental nature of many of our undertakings, we need to consider the safety of the city, as well. Our original building was located inside the city walls, but the need for expansion forced us to seek more space, and the council would only approve the funding if we located outside of the township. They were a little unnerved by the occasional explosion." He gave John a wry grin. John responded with a quixotic quirk of his eyebrow, and they passed into the complex.

oOo

John found the tour of the weapons complex fascinating. It was an experience that felt like stepping back in history. The Tranthian culture was a strange mixture of medieval and industrial age. The main weapon of choice was still a sword, although the tour of the iron smelt and armouries had shown John that these people were catching up fast, and were making good headway in propulsion weapons. Early model guns and rifles were already in use by the city's inhabitants and more prosperous rural citizens, and Commander Greaves assured him that their armies were being trained in the use of both guns and explosives designed from the local equivalent of gunpowder. Greaves even showed him their experimental weapons building, where cannons were under development, as well as something that looked like an automatic catapult that was completely new to him.

They were just exiting the building when a huge explosion rocked the compound. The force of the blast threw them off their feet and John lay momentarily stunned, feeling the aftershock rattle through the ground. He shook his head and rolled over to check on Greaves. The Commander was already back on his feet, yelling orders to his escort. As the soldiers dashed off to obey his commands, he turned to John and offered him a hand up.

"I'm truly sorry, Colonel Sheppard. I've just sent people to discover the cause of the explosion, so we'll find out what's happening momentarily." He broke off as a dusty soldier came running up to him. John listened as the man gave the Commander a surprisingly detailed report, given the confusion that must be reigning central to the explosion.

"It's the rebels, Sir. They've launched an all out offensive against the plant. We estimate upwards of two hundred soldiers have invaded the complex. A delivery of weapons powder from the refinery was due to arrive. From what we can tell, they waylaid the delivery team and posed as them to get close to the gate. They blew the front gate, and entered in force during the aftermath. Most of the soldiers guarding the gate were either killed or incapacitated. Troop leaders Harthen and Guiles are attempting to hold the main force near the armoury; it appears that is the focus of the raid."

"Rebels?" John interrupted, glaring at Commander Greaves.

"A small faction opposed to the Council's open trading policy with other worlds. They believe we should remain isolated from other cultures. They are a small group of dissidents, who rarely give us much trouble besides creating disruptions to Council proceedings and provoking some of the more gullible of the population. There have been no indications of open warfare before today."

"Don't you think it would have been nice to mention this earlier?" John hissed at the Commander.

"We would have informed you at the appropriate time, Colonel. Unfortunately the rebels seem to have upped the ante. Excuse me." He gave John a cool, albeit not unfriendly, look then returned his attention to the soldier before him.

As John listened to the Commander's instructions, he looked in the direction of the gate where a large cloud of black smoke was starting to dissipate. From where they were located, they didn't have a direct line of sight to the gate, so he could only imagine the scene from the soldiers report. Sounds of battle echoed back to them however, shouts and screams, interspersed with small detonations of gunfire. He started as roughly fifty or so men rounded the corner of the building in front of them. They were wearing long greyish tunics, not the neat brown tunics of the Tranth military. He grabbed Greaves' arm and pointed.

"Seems like the armoury isn't their only objective." He looked around at the Commander's escort and the few soldiers from the experimental weapons building that had stayed with the Commander rather than join the main force fighting at the gate. They numbered perhaps twenty.

"Colonel. Take four of my men and retreat into the building. One of my orders was to get word out to the city. They will have seen the explosion anyway, so they will already be preparing a counter offensive. All we have to do is hold until they get here," the Commander stated briskly. He was already turning back to his men to issue orders when John replied.

"I'm of more use to you here." He shifted his grip on his P-90, an unspoken reminder that he was armed and capable of defending himself.

"You're weapon is superior, Colonel, but with the main force fighting at the gate we are outnumbered. I cannot guarantee your safety." The Commander's words were stern, but there was approval written clearly on his face. John nodded in response to that, rather than the words.

"You can't guarantee my safety in there either."

John inwardly cursed, as he realised the rebel soldiers had seen them, biting his lip in concern as he watched them rush the short distance across the yard to engage the Commander's troops. John fired his P-90 into them, watching as nearly a dozen in the front rank collapsed. He heard a couple of loud bangs next to him, and looked briefly to notice that the Commander and some of his men had fired their own rudimentary pistols at the oncoming soldiers. Unfortunately, some of the rebels were also armed with guns, and four of their own men were now down, either dead or wounded.

The rebel rush was costly, but effective. John snarled in frustration as he realised the enemy forces were too close for him to use his P-90 without endangering his own side due to friendly fire. He quickly discarded his P-90, strapping it back on his vest, and drew out his Beretta. As an afterthought, he grabbed his knife out and held it in his left hand. He had the edge over his opponents, but both sides were fighting using swords, and John knew that his unfamiliarity with this style of fighting left him at a distinct disadvantage. He shot a rebel facing the Commander and turned quickly to take a sword blade on the edge of his knife. The smaller knife was good for little more than slowing the blade down, but it did give John time to kick the man in the stomach. He bought the grip of his Beretta down on the man's skull as he folded over from the force of the kick.

He used the brief respite to glance around, noticing grimly that more than half of their men were now dead. There were only seven of them now, struggling in hand to hand combat with over twenty rebel soldiers. John ducked a sword blow aimed at his head and fired his Beretta at the man in response. As he did, he yelled out a warning to Commander Greaves. His shout did little good, the Commander was engaged with two opponents, and a third had come up behind him and run his sword through Greaves' back. The Commander crumpled slowly, a vaguely regretful look on his face. John didn't have any time to grieve the likable man's death, as the three men that had been fighting the Commander turned towards him. He blocked a sword thrust aimed at his shoulder, and was bringing his Beretta up to shoot when pain exploded in the back of this skull and everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: A big thank you goes out to Linzi for the beta, and to SheppyD for inspiring the fic in the first place. Contains spoilers for Common Ground, and minor spoilers for Phantoms. Also contains torture scenes, so if you want fluffy!fic, please don't continue. If you like loads of angst, read on... Concrit welcome. :D_

**Chapter 2**

John came to sluggishly, blinking heavy eyelids as he adjusted to the dim lighting. His head throbbed mercilessly, and it took his fuddled brain a moment to clue him in as to why. Memories of the battle crashed in on him, along with the awareness that he was no longer in the yard of the weapons complex. The scent of musty air informed him he was inside, and he found the hard, cold surface of stone greeting his back. He sat up anxiously, only to be slammed down again, as restraints at his arms and legs forcibly prohibited the movement. He tested the restraints cautiously, hopefully probing for a weakness. After a few minutes, he gave the stiff leather cuffs a few hard jerks out of frustration and settled back impatiently.

He cast his eyes around the room. The drab grey stone walls were not very inspiring to begin with, and the dank, foetid air condensed and rolled down the thick surface, giving the walls the appearance of weeping. There were no windows; the sole source of light was a dim wall lamp, which flickered as though even the light did not want to touch this miserable room and its damned occupant.

A high-pitched screech of tortured metal made him look towards the rusted iron door, straining his neck in an effort to see. The brief flame of hope that flared at its opening was quashed as two strangers entered the cell. John studied them, trying to discover any edge he could use to get the hell out of his current predicament. They both wore dark breeches, and linen tunics that only held only a dim memory of the white they had originally been. Leather boots crunched on the dirty, rush covered floor. John noted their appearance in a glance, then promptly dismissed it as his attention focused on the long swords attached to the hip of each man. His fingers twitched involuntarily as a vision of himself armed with one of those swords slicing through the bonds that held him in thrall passed fleetingly through his mind.

The smaller man entered first. He was short and lithe, and would have been attractive if not for his greasy, unwashed appearance. He pushed his lank, brown hair out of his eyes before gesturing imperiously to the second man. His companion was a burly redheaded man, easily as tall as John, but a lot beefier. John sized him up; immediately pegging this one as the more threatening of the two.

The tall man dropped a large, vintage looking machine of some type down close to the prisoner. John stared curiously at the object; which appeared to consist of little more than a copper casing on a wooden stand. Several black insulated wires with little knobbly pads on the end strayed out of the back and dangled forlornly to the ground. The only other thing John could see on the machine was a small switch on the top. It looked laughably primitive, but John felt a cold sense of foreboding as his gaze returned to the pads at the end of the wires. His premonition flowered into fear as the redheaded man sliced his shirt open with a knife and started placing the pads onto his chest.

"Umm, I don't suppose that's a new massage therapy that you want to try out, is it?" His flippant comment was met with a communicative silence. No free massage then. He bit his lower lip in consternation. The silent guard finished his task with disconcerting efficiency and stepped back behind the machine, nodding to his companion. The greasy haired man stepped forward impassively.

"You will answer our questions." The clipped words were a demand, not a request.

"Like hell I will." John interjected. He decided he may as well get that out into the open. The slim man didn't look like he had much in the way of intelligence, so John thought it was best to clear up any misunderstandings straight away. The other man smiled slightly; a jaded, sardonic smile that barely registered on his face and wasn't reflected in his eyes.

"You will answer our questions. You will not do this immediately; you will experience a great deal of pain." His small smile in response to John's comment widened into a frightening grin that lit up his eyes with a shockingly insane inner fire. "I am looking forward to finding out how long it takes me to break you." John made a quick mental adjustment. The brawny man was not his biggest problem. This small, greasy young man in front of him with the manic glint of cold, rational insanity was by far the biggest threat. The young man looked up at his companion and nodded once.

John writhed in his restraints as the electricity coursed through his body and danced over his nerves. Fire flowered in his chest and burned into his muscles, which tightened and convulsed painfully as the force of the voltage ripped through him. John gritted his teeth and felt the salty taste of blood in his mouth. Agony danced across his skin; his hands clenched and his nails bit into his palms. The stench of burnt hair coiled into his nostrils, up through his sinuses and down his throat, where it lodged and threatened to make him gag.

As suddenly as it started, the pain ceased, leaving John quivering weakly in relief. The blond man's face came into view as he leaned in close over John.

"You will answer our questions." He repeated. John had never wanted anything so dearly as to fulfil the sudden desire to run from the look of insatiable hunger he saw burning in those eyes.

"Who are you?" The man's voice was silken with anticipation.

"Name's Bond. James Bond. Who the hell are you?" John had a moment to feel pleased that his voice didn't waver before the searing pain exploded into his senses again. Waves of white heat wound through his synapses, triggering a cascade of pain that made his feet beat a rapid staccato on the against the stone. Lightening caressed his teeth and shot up into his brain where it blossomed into a myriad of colours; each hue laden with sensation. A groan escaped him as he clenched his jaw, muscles taunt and twitching along the bone in time to the volts coursing through his body. Again the agony ceased with blessed suddenness; John lay there with his eyes closed feeling his muscles spasm through the aftershock. There was a moment of silence before the voice flowed through the darkness, thick and dripping with a god-forsaken pleasure that did nothing but trigger tiny trills of fear in John's heart.

"Who are you?" John clenched his muscles and brought his hands down hard, jerking at the leather cuffs in fear-fuelled anger. Again. And again. He heaved at the strips of hide with a strength borne of adrenaline and pure rage. His captor watched him without emotion. Only when John slumped back against the rock bench did he move. He took one step forward, bringing him right up against the prisoner's slab, and casually reached out a finger and slid it sensuously through the blood that was slowly dripping down John's arm. Staring directly into John's eyes, he languidly drew his hand up to his mouth and sucked the blood from his finger. The chilling smile returned, fed by the appalled look on his victim's face.

"Who are you?" He whispered.

"Screw you!" John had meant that to sound cockily defiant; he was a bit disappointed at the force with which it came out. His captor nodded genially to the red-headed guard, who flipped the switch on the machine once more.

John rode his third wave of lightning. His back arched as his body bowed up and his shoulders and heels dug painfully into the stone. His nerves blazed as the excruciating pain smashed unimpeded through his system. His body was weak and his strength ebbed from the previous sessions. The third time was the charm. His willpower failed under the onslaught as electricity shattered his defences and rode rough-shod through his battered mind. He screamed; an anguished, tortured sound that ripped his throat as it exploded outwards. The pain suddenly cut off once more, and John's muscles went limp involuntarily. He lay there, sucking in harsh, ragged lungfuls of air.

"Who are you?" A touch of steel in the voice this time. He felt like he had a stone in his chest; it was hard to breathe.

"Sheppard." His chest hurt and the word scraped painfully at his throat, so that it was scarcely audible by the time it passed his lips. He heard the mocking laughter envelop him and hold him like a lover. John felt a strange wetness on his cheeks. In the brief respite his name bought him, he tried to figure out who scared him more at that moment - his captor or himself.

"Good. Very good." John ground his teeth at the malicious satisfaction that laced the voice. He refused to look and see the same satisfaction etched cruelly on the man's face. John inhaled; a slow, calming breath, mercifully painless. He hadn't given up much – just a name. What's in a name? Name, rank, serial number. Hell, he'd only given up one of the three permissables. Still had two to go. He shored up the breach in his willpower, anticipating the next question. His own name was harmless, the next name would not be.

"Where are you from?" He was still too shaken from the last round to form an answer, so he lay in silence waiting for the pain. It came. It came from the stone beneath him. It came from the air around him. It came from the very molecules within him. There was no way that much pain could have emanated from four little electrodes attached to his skin. It pressed down from the outside and pushed up from the inside, leaving him taut and stretched and burning in the middle. The pressure rose and the currents of pain imploded in starbursts. His head flew back and he screamed again. It was easier to scream this time, to give voice to the agony, to let it loose so this scarring of his soul was revealed to the world. His voice died away as the electricity feeding it was severed, but the pain lingered. His entire body was supercharged and muscles continued to twitch as his nerves continued to fire in short, rapid bursts of searing heat.

"Where are you from?" This time the voice was richer; deeper, and more velvety. It was eager and laced with an emotion John couldn't identify. He turned his head the necessary two inches, swallowing the gasp of pain that small motion triggered. He looked into the face of his interrogator and saw it was flushed with desire. John shuddered and felt his mind silently shriek with appalled horror. John had thought the man's satisfaction had been from his success. The avaricious eyes boring into him clearly told him the man expected him not to answer. John closed his eyes on the madness in front of him and tasted bitter bile in the back of his throat. He swallowed it down just as the pain embraced him.

Too much! The agony was everywhere, inescapable. It wrapped him up in a black cacoon and cut through him like razors, shredding him. He felt his body lifted and slammed back down against the stone, only to be violently thrown sideways. The restraints held him on to the stone slab but they didn't hold him motionless as the force of the electricity raged through weakened muscles and tore away the last vestiges of his strength. He felt wetness on his skin at his ankles and wrists, and knew the skin was torn and bleeding. He knew he should feel it, but the sting of ruptured skin was lost in the overwhelming torment. The smell of burnt hair that had assaulted his nostrils earlier was replaced with it the sticky sweet smell of charred flesh.

When the guard flipped the switch again, John was too far gone to realise it. Muscles contracted, taunt and rigid. His body tried to curl in upon itself, but the leather straps anchoring him to the stone prevented that action. His body went into spasms and was wracked with wave upon wave of convulsions. He tried to scream again, but all that came out of his throat was a raspy whimper.

"Where are you from?" God, he hated that voice. Words weren't supposed to have weight and shape and form. They weren't supposed to slide sinuously into your pain dazed consciousness and wrap serpentine around your mind. He couldn't give it an answer. He wanted to, dear God he wanted to answer all the voice's questions and make them stop, let them kill him, let it end! But a kernel of stubbornness at the core of his being held fast to names and faces that were dearer to him than anything he could have ever imagined before Atlantis. He tried to tell his tormentor that; was surprised to hear the words falter and morph into a weak, high pitched laugh. He was still whole enough to recoil at the fear and hysteria he heard in that strangled sound.

John felt a clammy had run through his sweat drenched hair. The touch was light; a caress. The gesture coming from anyone else would have been comforting, soothing. But coming from the man who had just tortured him it generated nothing but roiling waves of disgust. He tried to pull away but his body was still beyond his control. The gentle hand continued to pet him while the seizure slowly subsided.

"Hush. It's okay. I don't want to kill you." The words filtered through the pain-filled haze and confusion set in. He hadn't got the words out, had he? He fought harder for clarity. No, he hadn't spoken. He turned unfocused eyes towards the man and saw not kindness, but cruelty.

"Yes," the interrogator nodded. "We have a long way to go yet, you and I." John lay silently, bound hand and foot, feeling the fading tremors from the seizure continue to quiver through his limbs. A sense of loathing filled him; thick, black, ugly hate. He let it show in his face, let the eyes looking down at him _see_. He received nothing more than a gentle smile, disconcertingly paired with that fevered stare. Then the eyes moved away and John stared at the ceiling, exhausted, and tried to pull his mind back into some semblance of normality.

He heard the screech of the door as it opened, and was distantly aware of another beefy guard joining the bastard who had operated the machine of John's torture. He watched as the new guard, this one dark haired with paler skin, walked to the head of the stone slab. Watched with detached calm as he raised a rough cloth to John's face and pressed the wet, pungent material firmly down, gripping John tightly by the hair to limit his resistance. He fought a silent, suffocating battle not to inhale, then felt himself slide into a welcome darkness.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Sorry for the long wait. Once again, thank you to Linzi for being such a wonderful and supportive beta. _

**Chapter 3**

John awoke to find himself in a small cell not unlike the interrogation room. This cell was smaller and the cold grey stone walls seemed to press in on him, suffocating him. Unlike the interrogation chamber, this room had one window; a narrow, horizontal slit barely a hand span in diameter, set high up in the wall. There were no lights, but the soft beam of sunshine invading the gloomy room cast enough light to see by. He looked around, taking note of his new accommodations.

The little chamber had a high roof, like the other room, but John estimated it was barely eight foot in either direction. The floor was covered in some sort of dried long rushes, grotty and smelling of mildew in the cold, damp air. Two buckets stood in one corner, and by lifting himself up onto one elbow he could see that one was empty, and the other contained water with a few bits of the straw floating forlornly on the top. The wall opposite the window held a large, rusted iron door; a huge slab of thick steel with large hinges anchoring it to the stone. He looked at it with a cold feeling of defeat in the pit of his stomach.

Pushing the bleak feelings to the back of his mind, John rose shakily to his feet and tried to jump high enough to see out of the small window. The movement sent pain rocketing through him, and he bolted to the corner and emptied his stomach in the small slops bucket. He looked back at the embrasure. The clear azure sky seemed to taunt him, re-enforce his captivity. He turned his back on it.

He did a quick inventory on himself. His entire body ached and he felt, well, he felt like he'd been electrocuted. His limbs felt weak and heavy and his chest burned and stung painfully. His wrists and ankles had scabbed over from where the restraints had sliced into them when he'd struggled; he must have been out for a few hours for them to dry and begin to heal. Whether he'd been unconscious that long from the drug or from exhaustion was anyone's guess.

His head was throbbing, fit to explode. He walked over to the two buckets and, trying to ignore the vomit in the slop bucket, he scooped some water out of the second bucket and drank some of the cool, gritty liquid. He took off the remnants of his cut shirt and dipped a corner into the water and gently wiped away the dried blood. He shivered in the chilly temperature and put his jacket back on his bare torso. As he did, he noticed the four burn marks where the electrodes had been attached. No wonder his chest hurt so much. He dabbed them softly with the damp shirt, hissing through gritted teeth as he took what small measure was available to him to clean the wounds and stave off infection. He walked back over to the window and sat with his back against the wall, facing the door. He drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, hunching into his jacket. Elizabeth and his team would know what had happened by now, and would be coming for him soon. Composing himself, eyes never leaving the door, John sat back and waited.

oOo

The passage of several hours saw John impatiently striding back and forth in the small cell, avoiding the walls by sense of their looming presence in the pitch black. It had been dark for several hours. His hopes of jumping the guard that delivered his food had dwindled slowly as the hours passed and the hollow sense of emptiness in his stomach increased. He gauged that it must be close to midnight, and the final lingering hopes of the cell door opening finally dissipated. He turned sharply at the wall and took three steps across the limited enclosure before stopping at the next wall. He leaned his forehead against the greasy stone and closed his eyes against the feelings of helplessness. His head snapped up and his eyes flew open, blazing in sudden anger. He leapt over to the door and slammed his fist against the heavy iron plate.

"Hey!" He slammed his fist into the door again, not feeling the pain of the impact. "Come on!" John strode back to the wall and kicked it savagely before turning and sliding down it, head in his hands.

oOo

John regretfully awoke out of a fitful slumber. He rolled over on the rotting straw and looked up at the sliver of sky outside the window. Heavy, dark grey clouds released their weighty burdens, and John tried not to dwell on the impression that the sky was weeping. He slowly rose and stood under the window, relishing the cold, damp breeze that smelt of rain and fresh air and gave him momentary respite from the stench of the waste bucket and his own rank, stale sweat.

His second night in the prison cell had been much worse than the first. For some reason, John found the days were much more tolerable. The illusion of some scant measure of security offered by daylight allowed him to sleep in fits and starts. At the very least it offered him light, allowed him to see his surroundings and gave him the visual impetus to distract his mind somewhat.

Nights; those were bad. The dense blackness in his cell seemed to have a weight that pressed down on him. Scuttling sounds and the chittering of unseen nocturnal creatures made him curl up uneasily. Distant sounds of the living carried further in the still night air, and left him aching with loneliness and yearning to hear a friendly voice.

The darkness before sleep had always been an uncomfortable time for him when, lying warm under the heavy blankets, his mind would wander into areas that he wouldn't allow it to go during the day. Eventually the soft seduction of sleep would allow him to leave those thoughts behind him.

Here, denied of sleep by restlessness borne of captivity and his fitful dozes during the day, those unwelcome thoughts were inescapable. His mind would drift over experiences that were locked and barred within his memory during the daylight hours. The dark stone cell would trigger a memory of the Wraith Kolya had allowed to feed on him, a memory made all the more tangible by the incessant pain from the burns on his chest.

Hunger would stab at him, and his mind would be taken back to the desert, crouched in the meagre cover offered by a small scattering of rocks as his stomach growled and Holland quipped that if he flew all this way to find him, he could at least have gone through a MacDonald's drive through on the way past. That memory, like any reminder of that time, would lead inevitably to the vivid, gut wrenching memory of holding Holland's body in his arms, feeling the sticky warmth of blood and worse soak into his fatigues as he cradled the ruin of his friend's head against his chest and listened to the harsh, angry voices of the approaching Taliban soldiers.

With effort, John forcibly thrust the images into the small recesses at the back of his mind. He was experienced enough to know that the isolation and starvation were another form of torture, equally as vicious as and possibly more dangerous than the electrocution had been. His body was weakened by the interrogation, and two days confined in a small space with no food was sapping his strength and slowly eroding his willpower. And as his physical strength waned, fear and stress attacked his mind, leaving it increasingly vulnerable to his own demons. He stood silently watching the rain falling, and told himself that the fine spray blown in through the narrow embrasure was accountable for the wetness he felt on his face.


End file.
